Over the years I've taken part in various role-playing games as an adjunct to imbibing. Just recently a friend produced these sketches I did as references for a campaign he was running (but I wasn't in). We both had a passable knowledge of uniforms and equipment, and spent a few evenings discussing ideas, while I did a few rough drafts which became the catalogue below. I don't even recall the exact date - I had completely forgotten them - but I think it was possibly as far back as the 1980s, probably around mid '90s.

What I find remarkable is that I hadn't heard of Steampunk. We just postulated a world where the culture and fashion was about 19th century but technology was ... oh, you know!

In particular, if anyone else has a similar dark secret as closet illustrator, sketcher of outfit ideas, or private doodler, please feel free to add to the thread!

So, with your indulgence ...

Some common folk

Fashionistas

The Brass Hats

Crunchies

Troops

Aircrew

Sailors

Grunts

Elites

Airborne

Sea power

Adventurers

Adventuresses and Dirty Old Man

Transport

That's that. I've done other illustrations to game write-ups and other stories, but these turned up, forgotten by me, and they struck me as on topic here. I'd love to see other people's works.

Thanks Annie. Maybe having drawn them, I kick myself when I spot the bad bits! Having forgotten I did them, I still spot details I recall debating way back during planning. The airship crew with felt boots (historic, but in steam worlds a thumping great boiler makes the felt boots a bit trivial). Clogs on the peasants. The quilted mail trousers on the adventuress, and her daintier colleague with a pistol in the back of her belt, a knife in her shoe and a clip of ammo in her hatband. I had some guys wearing puttees - a cheap alternative to leather leggings, folks, when planning a new costume!

Nice work, Melrose!Bit of an artist hiding away there, it seems!Maybe now you could do another set??

Thank you! I don't see me doing much of the same. I am spending spare time writing, and occasionally illustrating my writing, and that's so far behind it's not funny. Perhaps I can make do with a few illustrations to a Lovecraftian campaign I umpired almost 20 years ago. The illustrations were fairly rough pen-work. It was set right in-period, in Essex.

The opening game, by way of a lead-in for the players, outside the Athaenium Club; and a Mysterious Death in Essex -

The little girl's been helping the players, and now they're on the clock. And that fellow's clearly crazy, what help will he be? His name isn't even "Pickman". And finally, He Who Must Be Banished.

Finally one illustration for my recent writing. I don't want to say a lot about it, and it's out of period anyway, early 1700s.

I've lost the ability to draw like that, when I was a child. Too much science you see, the neurons were needed for maths and other things. I still have a good artistic sense, just not good enough to draw people. Would love to have illustrations of my tentative novel The Valkyrie and the Eagle. Certainly there will be schematics for the airships (which I will design from real-world flight principles).

And because my novel will be heavily based on real history, I've determined that all but people who are very well learned in geopolitical and scientific history of the 1860s-70s will probably have a hard time determining what is real and what is not. Hence, there will be a need to have side by side illustrations comparing real-life history to the alternate time line as laid out in the book (e.g. a real late 1800s airship, vs. an 1870's fictionalised stratospheric airship, with a brief explanation of what technology was required decades in advance to make that possible), and portraits of famous personalities with real history explanations versus the fictionalised versions (e.g American President Abraham Lincoln, Austrian Prince/Mexican Emperor Maximilian I, Mexican President Benito Juarez, French Emperor Napoleon III and Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph,plus a myriad of other people who will be supporting characters).

The airship technology of the era was almost trivial, and the understanding of the upper atmosphere non-existent. But to sustain a global war, I propose inventing a stratospheric jetstream-cruising airship, and decades in advance scientific research on the upper atmosphere. An unexpected alliance between Maximilian I and Napoleon III with the Confederate States of America, will force Abraham Lincoln to ally with Prussia. Predicting cotton markets will be lost to France, Great Britain will have to stop support for the Confederates and ally with the Union as well.

Because of that I don't have hand illustrations, I'm afraid, but can show you some examples about the things I'd certainly like to illustrate...

Confederate States Ironclad Ship CSS Texas built in Bordeaux, France, sails to America to join the war effort

Mexican Republican Troops fighting against the French and Maximilian's Imperial forces

Mexican President Benito Juarez leading the exiled Republican government, hiding in Northern Mexico

On the other hand, I don't think they''ll have too much of a hard time determining that my elvish third-gender Austrian Airship mechanics are a figment of my imagination. But naturally I would have to illustrate the characters, of which General Bahlmann (shown below - one of my two personas) is one of the two main characters

Original Steampunk character. Lt. Gen. Julin Wodinaz Bahlmann, US Corps of Engineers, originally an Austro-Hungarian refugee, a member of the 3rd. Gender Elf-like group of people known as the Engelfolk and a Luftschiffengel (Airship Angel).

Rear Admiral George H. Wadleigh, USN (1842-1927). This chap looks like he could be Admiral Johannes Wilhelm in his later years. Wilhelm was the Bavarian-born captain of the United States Airship Orca, formerly the Confederate ship Alamo, and formerly the Austrian KuK Die Walküre, which he captured/commandeered during the Franco American Aerial Battle over the Desert of Sonora. He's responsible for rescuing the Luftschiffengel from imprisonment in Union camps, under the condition they be pressed into service for the Union operating the captured ships (an idea he had to sell to President Lincoln himself).

I hope that the juxtaposition of real history with fiction will turn out to be a highly educational experience for the reader, and further the understanding of the novel, and real history, in light of the educational shortcomings of my compatriots (educational systems very seldom bother to teach what was happening on the other side of the world while "this or that" important domestic national event was happening. A global war requires a global scope, which I don't expect the reader to have.

Since it was required for my college studies, technical data, drawings and schematics will be trivial to provide. But people, I'm afraid I can't draw too well.

I'm not so sure you can lose the skill, J. Wilhelm. Years ago I drew prolifically, then life intervened and I went for years without drawing. When I recommence I am certainly rusty. I don't dare lift a proper drawing pen until I've used pencils and got back the feel. Over the years I've heard things like "it's so easy for you". It's not easy, I have to practice and work on it, and I can't help feeling most people would be surprised at what they can do if they would only bother to practice. Then again, I can't be too critical. I'm impressed at people who can make their own steampunk clothes or tinker up equipment. I might dare to tinker, but sewing on a button is something I can make a mess of. I share your interest in writing. My chief problem is I find it easy to make a short story long. The skill is doing the reverse.